One more time for the people at the back: Vaccines. Don't. Cause. Autism. The connection between the MMR vaccine and the development of autism was put about by a man called Andrew Wakefield back in 1998. This research has since been repeatedly and emphatically proved to be completely fraudulent, the paper has been officially retracted and Wakefield himself has been found guilty of serious professional misconduct and struck off the medical register. That's a pretty resounding NOPE from the scientific community. The absurd thing is that not even the anti-vaxxers can prove the link between vaccination and autism as a six-year study funded by an anti-vax group failed to find any evidence to support the claim (which is awkward for them). In true fingers-in-ears fashion, however, they have since claimed that this is due to concerns about changes in the study design protocol and analysis that may have led to these contradictory results which is roughly translated to "we got some results that agreed with us to begin with, but when we tested them properly, it turned out that they didn't". Autism isn't on the rise, it's just no longer misdiagnosed. Even if it was, an autistic person would be autistic whether you vaccinated them or not. Vaccines don't cause autism. I'm sorry, there's really no other way of putting it, they don't. Vaccinate yo' kids, people. They're important. Want to write for What Culture Science? Click here to find out how you could get paid to write about what you love.Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for plenty more science up in yo' bidness.
